Tories are the best bet for our industry

With the election campaign in full swing this seems like a good time to air my views on which party would best serve the mortgage market.

I have Labour comfortably in third place as nothing will convince me that the party will do anything different in the future than it has in the past.

Its inability to put forward a concrete plan on how the country can pay off its debt is concerning. And the fact that its catchphrase is ’new politics’ says it all.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s performance on television was pretty impressive and his jump in the polls reflects that, but I can’t see much that suggests the Lib Dems will do anything useful for the mortgage market.

And being good on TV doesn’t necessarily mean Clegg will be good at leading the country.

But Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable seems credible and if he was willing to join the Conservative Party he would make a great chancellor.

So I put the Tories in the lead as far as the mortgage market goes because a credible plan to pay off our national debt is critical.

Unless we convince the International Monetary Fund, the rating agencies and the global community that we have this under control it is likely that our credit status will come under pressure.This will lead to an uncontrolled rise in interest rates and as I have said before, the two big things we should be worrying about are interest rates and unemployment.

I was not surprised to see a recent announcement by the Association of Residential Lettings Agents that the UK is facing a severe housing shortage caused mainly by the lack of buy-to-let mortgages. Politicians and regulators were quick to point the finger at the boom in second and third property ownership as a reason for […]

People always remember the organisations that stand by them in the tough times – those that provide a strong shoulder to lean on and give support when it is needed. I believe that when the good times return lenders that have either stopped lending or turned their back on the broker market will be remembered […]

Johnson Fleming has published a step-by-step guide demonstrating the importance of record keeping and reporting, and how it can ensure you operate a successful scheme. The guide takes you through some key questions you need to ask and identifies the information you need to obtain. The topics include: why you need to keep records and the benefits of doing this; registering your scheme; what information you need to record to ensure you meet the Pensions Regulator’s requirements; and what items need to be recorded and when.

I’m very disappointed that Mortgage Strategy is being used as a party political broadcast in favour of the Tory party. I am also somehwat disconcerted by the analysis made inasmuch as the Tories hacve not been particularly good on the economic front. I’m old enough to remember the disaster that was Barber in the 70’s and the not so wonderful record of Lawson and Lamont in the 80’s. I think it is also useful to remember that the Thatcher Governement laid the seeds to the current problems when they de-regulated the mortgage market in 1983 and then followed it up with the Yuppie and unsustainable boom later in the ’80s. There is a lot of romantacising about the Tories’ ability with the economy which are rarely supported by the facts.

Notwithstanding the abobve I find the failure to understand that we cannot know how good Cameron and Osbourne will be as they, like Clegg and Cable, have no experience in Government – Not that, I hasten to add, that I think Brown and Darling are a dream ticket. The market is very fragile and anyone who wants to take away the crutches could make it worse. It seems that the Tories are the party that want to remove thse and I therefore leave the rest to individual judgement.

Finally and as a proponent of our parliamentary democracy I am very perturbed by the beauty parade of the television debates. We are not electing a President – a president can’t be changed by his party in mid term – but we are electing our local representative albeit that this will be tied to a party ideology.

And perhaps the best Head of Governement isn’t the one who looks best, or speaks the best but is the one who ultimately does the best job. For clarity I am neither pro-Labour nor Pro-Tory

If you look at the last 40 years the financial services industry has always done better under a Labour Government. That said, a Conservative government would probably cut many of the benefits currently available which would be no bad thing.